Facebook has eliminated over 1.5 billion fake accounts and over 2.1 billion spam pieces between April and September. Recently, the tech company shared the astonishing number of deleted fake accounts in its Community Standards Report.

Facebook gets better at identifying violating content

In May, Facebook shared numbers to show the amount of violating content that it detected on its services so people can see for themselves just how the tech company is actually doing.

In its recent blog post, with the headline, ‘How Are We Doing at Enforcing Our Community Standards?’, Facebook revealed that it has invested both in technology and people to remove content that is unlawful and fake. However, this is the first time that the tech company has published their internal guidelines. The review teams of Facebook use these guidelines to enforce its Community Standards.

Facebook said that it did this to allow its community to understand in a better way the kind of content that is allowed on the site and the reason it is allowed. The report shows how it has dealt with fake accounts and with problems like hate speech, pornography, violence, terrorism and spam accounts for the six months between April and September 2018.

In November, Facebook published another Community Standards Enforcement Report, which included two new categories of data – child pornography and sexual exploitation of children, and bullying and online harassment.

According to the blog, the amount of hate speech that Facebook detects proactively, before any user reports it, has increased to 52% from 24% since its last report. Additionally, its proactive detection rate for graphic and violent content increased to 97% from 72% – a hike of 25%.

The report reads that the company took some action in the third quarter this year on 15.4 million pieces of violent as well as graphic content. This “action” included eliminating content, disabling content that is offending, placing a warning screen over unlawful content, and turning over the content to law enforcement.

In addition to this, Facebook deleted more spam accounts in Q2 and Q3 in comparison to previous quarters – over 800 million (second quarter) and 754 million (third quarter) respectively. Guy Rosen, Facebook vice president of product management, said that the staff at Facebook understands that there is lot that they have to do when they talk about removing abuse from the social network.

]]>Brazil Revenue Department Wants to Monitor Crypto Firmshttps://www.rknglobal.org/brazil-revenue-department-wants-to-monitor-crypto-firms/
Mon, 10 Dec 2018 12:13:40 +0000https://www.rknglobal.org/?p=868Brazil’s Department of Federal Revenue, or RFB, published a document which shows that Brazil-based crypto exchange platforms would be required to submit detailed monthly reports on each of their cryptocurrency-related operations. Those who don’t report will face penalty Individuals and companies that use digital assets in Brazil will have to report cryptocurrency-related transactions that exceed […]

Brazil’s Department of Federal Revenue, or RFB, published a document which shows that Brazil-based crypto exchange platforms would be required to submit detailed monthly reports on each of their cryptocurrency-related operations.

Those who don’t report will face penalty

Individuals and companies that use digital assets in Brazil will have to report cryptocurrency-related transactions that exceed $2,700, or 10,000 Brazilian reaIs. Those who fail to do it would be fined in an amount that would depend on whether the report was false, wrong or just delayed.

According to the RFB, crypto buyers and sellers transferred $1n billion, or 4 billion reaIs, in Brazil to buy and sell crypto coins like BTC in December 2017. The annual trading volume of crypto is expected to be between 18 and 45 billion reaIs by the end of 2018, given the growth of the crypto industry in the country.

The RFB said, “In Brazil, there has been a significant increase in the cryptoasset market in recent years, which demonstrates the relevance of the cryptoasset market in the country, mainly for the tax administration, since transactions are subject to income tax on the capital gains eventually earned.”

The RFB document said that the number of user accounts on crypto operators has surpassed the number of user accounts which were registered on the Sao Paulo stock exchange. According to the media outlet CCN, the country’s biggest investment firm, XP Investimentos, has launched a cryptocurrency exchange dubbed XDEX. Huobi, a leading crypto exchange, has also expanded its operations to Brazil.

Corruption a serious concern

Corruption and money laundering are two of the main concerns in the country. This comes especially after Brazilians elected Jair Bolsonaro as President. Bolsonaro has pledged to end corruption in the country.

The CVM, Brazil’s main regulatory authority of Brazil, has released a comprehensive document which provides guidance to fund managers who want to add digital currencies to their portfolios. It offers guidance on indirect investments in crypto, and calls attention to illegal operations. These include fraud, price manipulation, and money laundering. The document warns of the importance of avoiding fraudulent cryptocurrencies.

]]>Facebook setting up a task force for 2019 Lok Sabha electionshttps://www.rknglobal.org/facebook-setting-up-a-task-force-for-2019-lok-sabha-elections/
Tue, 27 Nov 2018 07:58:42 +0000https://www.rknglobal.org/?p=862Fake news can and has been a plague in recent years. In countries like India, there have been several cases of fake news on WhatsApp and Facebook that have led to as many as 12 (known) murders. It can create political chaos as well by improperly influencing elections. Facebook to launch a task force before […]

Fake news can and has been a plague in recent years. In countries like India, there have been several cases of fake news on WhatsApp and Facebook that have led to as many as 12 (known) murders. It can create political chaos as well by improperly influencing elections.

Facebook to launch a task force before 2019 elections

To combat fake news and in view of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in India, Facebook is setting up a task force. After its highly criticized handling of fake news before the 2016 U.S. elections, the company is trying to work ahead of elections in other countries. Facebook’s user base in India is large, with 241 active users (as a basis for comparison, there are 240 million people who are a potential audience for Facebook in the U.S.)

A Facebook Vice President said that the team will be based in India and will include content specialists and security specialists. He added that the team will try to understand all forms of election-related abuse in the country. Allan said, “The challenge for the task force in India would be to distinguish between real political news and political propaganda.”

Allan told reporters that the company wants to assist countries around the world, including India, in conducting fair and free elections. Allan said that fake information–which is linked to real-world violence– is checked by the team responsible for maintaining Facebook’s community standards, but there is a different team of fact checkers to verify other forms of disinformation.

Earlier this year, Facebook was criticized, including for the Cambridge Analytica Scandal and Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. The British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica accessed the private information of around 87 lakh users, including of 5 lakh users from India.

Additionally, Allan said that Facebook will release a political ads archive before the 2019 general elections so Indians can see all the ads posted by political parties on its network.

Facebook’s ads archive will let people look at the advertising content posted on Instagram and Facebook, the estimated number of people who saw it, the duration for which an ad ran, and the locations where it was viewed, among other things.

]]>Revisiting the #DeleteFacebook Trendhttps://www.rknglobal.org/revisiting-the-deletefacebook-trend/
Mon, 19 Nov 2018 11:51:46 +0000https://www.rknglobal.org/?p=854Some users are frustrated, others are looking for an apology, and some are furious. Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal earlier this year, the #DeleteFacebook hashtag has been a trend, but after the recent data breach of 29 million accounts, many more users have lost their patience. Some have even asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to […]

Some users are frustrated, others are looking for an apology, and some are furious. Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal earlier this year, the #DeleteFacebook hashtag has been a trend, but after the recent data breach of 29 million accounts, many more users have lost their patience. Some have even asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to step down.

#DeleteFacebook: The company’s response to the data breach

During a press conference call, Facebook’s vice president of product management refused to say who may have been behind the recent hack. However, he did disclose that the social media platform had traced the attack back to “group of seed accounts,” which means that it is possible to trace the perpetrator.

Rosen also said that Facebook is trying to find out if smaller scale attacks were conducted before September 14th. There was no evidence that the information stolen was being sold on the dark web or was being used by the attackers to target individuals.

The company has given scant details about the attack other than who was affected. Company officials said that they have no clear information on who was behind the attack or where the hackers might be based. In a statement, Rosen said, “We now know that fewer people were impacted than we originally thought. Of the 50 million people whose access tokens we believed were affected, about 30 million actually had their tokens stolen.”

30 million is by no means a small number, and it shows how unsecure the social media platform is. A few users took to Twitter to show how furious they were with the company.

Status of Facebook’s investigation

In its blog, the company noted that it discovered the attack on September 25th. The article states that the “attackers had exploited a vulnerability caused by the complex interaction of three bugs in our system to obtain access tokens.” The company determined that attackers used the access tokens between September 14th and 27th to get certain Facebook account information from the platform.

While conducting the investigation, the tech giant invalidated the access tokens of almost 90 million accounts to protect users. Facebook said there is no need for people to change their passwords and that it will notify users when more information flows in.

]]>White House to Investigate Tech Giants about Antitrusthttps://www.rknglobal.org/white-house-investigate-tech-giants-antitrust/
Tue, 13 Nov 2018 13:47:31 +0000https://www.rknglobal.org/?p=850U.S. President Donald Trump has been hitting out at technology giants like Facebook and Google, claiming that the companies are trying to silence conservatives and are publishing fake news. Now, the White House is reportedly preparing to investigate the business practices of the technology companies. Federal agencies to investigate whether antitrust laws are being followed […]

U.S. President Donald Trump has been hitting out at technology giants like Facebook and Google, claiming that the companies are trying to silence conservatives and are publishing fake news. Now, the White House is reportedly preparing to investigate the business practices of the technology companies.

Federal agencies to investigate whether antitrust laws are being followed

The White House has drafted an executive antitrust order for the President to sign to allow federal agencies to investigate the social networking sites. The executive order will instruct the relevant federal agencies to investigate the business-related practices of both Google and Facebook.

A draft copy of the order, which was obtained by Bloomberg, instructs authorities to investigate the “online platforms” thoroughly and find whether they have acted in “violation of the antitrust laws” or not.

The order instructs federal agencies to develop recommendations within a month for ways to address online platform bias and to protect competition among online platforms. As of the time of writing of this post, the order has not yet been finalized.

There have been concerns that the order might conflict with the First Amendment and threaten the independence of U.S. law enforcement, but the draft order specifically reiterates that all actions that federal agencies take must be consistent with other laws.

Trump accuses tech companies of bias against conservative voices

The draft of the order says that it is “essential that American citizens are protected from anticompetitive acts by dominant online platforms because of their critical role in American society.” It also states that consumer harm could come through the exercise of bias. Mr. Trump has constantly accused the tech companies of bias, tweeting that “Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices.”

Trump had said the tech companies are closing down the opinions of many people on the Right, while simultaneously doing nothing to others.”

The draft order could let federal agencies investigate whether the products of social media companies can be twisted to support themselves in an anti-competitive manner. The U.S. is not the first to take an interest in these issues. When it comes to being strict against online platforms, the European Union has taken most stringent steps, recently fining Google over £3.8 billion for abusing its control of the Android operating system.

]]>New Facebook Feature to Identify Fake Newshttps://www.rknglobal.org/new-facebook-feature-to-identify-fake-news/
Tue, 06 Nov 2018 10:04:53 +0000https://www.rknglobal.org/?p=782Facebook is releasing a new feature that could help its Canadian users identify fake news. Users will be able to get information about the news they read on the social networking site and determine whether it is real or fake. How will the new feature work? The tool lets users get information on who was […]

]]>Facebook is releasing a new feature that could help its Canadian users identify fake news. Users will be able to get information about the news they read on the social networking site and determine whether it is real or fake.

How will the new feature work?

The tool lets users get information on who was behind content published on the social networking platform. Facebook says it is rolling out a new button on News Feeds that will help Canadian users investigate the credibility of an article and determine whether the source of the article can be trusted or not.

The social media giant says that clicking on the button will lead to the Wikipedia entry of the poster, information on the number of times the article was shared on Facebook, where it was shared or was being shared, and a list of related articles.

Facebook has already tested the feature on news articles in the UK and the USA, and it is planning to expand the feature to all links posted on its platform instead of limiting it to links to news articles.

Facebook has been trying to show lawmakers that it is doing all it can to prevent the spread of fake news and to block bad behavior on its site; this clearly seems to be a part of those efforts.

Facebook to open “War Room” to safeguard elections from fake news

In its latest effort to protect elections from malfeasance on its network, Facebook has come up with its own War Room. The War Room will consist of 20 people, including data scientists, engineers and executives, who will monitor dashboards that show activity on the social network and how it changes in real time, noting irregularities, such as a hike in automated account creation within a particular geographic region, for example.

More than 300 people are already working at Facebook to protect elections from fake news and misinformation published on the site to influence voters. Samidh Chakrabarti, head of Facebook’s elections and civic engagement team, said that Facebook sees the War Room as the “biggest company-wide reorientation” since the shift from desktops to mobile devices.

Facebook also announced that it has partnered with TurboVote to motivate its users to register to vote. Additionally, the company is planning to publish regular reports on trends that were observed through its political ad archive. India is having its elections soon– maybe that will be another venue in which we will get to see the effect of this latest of Facebook’s efforts.

]]>Can Facebook and Twitter Team Up to Fight Hate Speech?https://www.rknglobal.org/can-facebook-and-twitter-team-up-to-fight-hate-speech/
Tue, 30 Oct 2018 09:51:15 +0000https://www.rknglobal.org/?p=765Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey talked about collaboration of Twitter and Facebook to fight fake news and hate speech during their two-hour testimony before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in September. But do antitrust laws allow them to team up? What are antitrust laws? The main question that arose […]

]]>Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey talked about collaboration of Twitter and Facebook to fight fake news and hate speech during their two-hour testimony before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in September. But do antitrust laws allow them to team up?

What are antitrust laws?

The main question that arose after Sandberg said that Facebook’s collaboration with Twitter has greatly increased was whether the companies are even allowed to work together at all. Sandberg stated that Facebook has shared information with other companies. Dorsey, agreeing with Sandberg, revealed that Twitter is very open to establishing a regular “cadence” with the industry peers.

Antitrust laws are laws designed to protect the consumers from predatory business practices by making sure there is fair competition in the open-market economy. Antitrust laws are applicable to different areas, including monopolies, market allocation, price fixing, mergers and acquisitions, and the like.

The collaboration between Twitter and Facebook could be important in the battle against hate speech on social media. It could provide a better approach to strengthen policies against cyberbullies and abusers. But what about competition laws? Both Facebook and Twitter are private companies and provide free services. Users who sign up on these two social media platforms agree to abide by their terms and conditions. If their collaboration amounted to anticompetitive collusion, then it would likely violate antitrust laws.

Which agreements violate antitrust laws?

Making a superior product that dominates a market does not in and of itself violate antitrust laws. However, dominant companies coming together or making an agreement to mislead consumers or rivals could well violate the law.

Antitrust regulators would likely get involved if Facebook and Twitter got together to team up and change the pricing structure of advertising.

In their anti-hate-speech collaboration, the companies are apparently arguing that their data-sharing should be permitted because they are not collaborating for a business advantage, but to team up to solve a problem that harms the public and that each company struggles with on its own.

Sandberg made it clear that collaboration is already ongoing. She added “We [already] get tips from each other. The faster we collaborate, the faster we share these tips with each other, the stronger our collective defenses will be.”

For his part, Dorsey said that Twitter wishes to contribute to a healthy public square, “not compete to have the only one, we know that’s the only way our business thrives and helps us all defend against these new threats.”

]]>EU Gets Strict Over Extremist Content on Social Media Platformshttps://www.rknglobal.org/eu-gets-strict-over-extremist-content-on-social-media-platforms/
Tue, 23 Oct 2018 13:37:28 +0000https://www.rknglobal.org/?p=76360 minutes – that’s all the time social media platforms now have to remove extremist content or terrorism-related content from their site after being notified about it, according to a proposal presented to the European Parliament. Remove extremist content or face fines: European Union European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in his last State of […]

]]>60 minutes – that’s all the time social media platforms now have to remove extremist content or terrorism-related content from their site after being notified about it, according to a proposal presented to the European Parliament.

Remove extremist content or face fines: European Union

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in his last State of the Union address that social networking sites which do not comply would be subject to strict sanctions. In 2016, the EU executive first presented its code of conduct on countering hate speech. At that time, the four major internet platforms participating in the code of conduct were Microsoft, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

In 2017, EU released a press release which explained what illegal hate speech is and what content would lead to censorship. It noted that the goal of the Code is to ensure that requests to remove content are dealt with speedily: “The companies have committed to reviewing the majority of these requests in less than 24 hours and to removing the content if necessary.”

This year in March, the European Union gave the social media platforms three months to show that they were taking actions to remove radical posts. Those three months and an additional two months are now over, and regulators have now decided that the tech companies, which have taken down 70% of content reported as illegal hate speech within a day, have not done enough to take down extremist posts.

The latest proposal demands immediate action on extremist content

The latest proposal has made it quite clear that prompt action is a must if companies want to avoid unfavorable consequences. According to Juncker, EU Member States will be required to “follow-up with non-compliance with an effective, proportionate and dissuasive round sanctions aimed at eliminating any content that is associated with terrorist organisations.”

As for the fine, a company which fails to follow the rules would be subject to a fine of around 4% of its total annual turnover for the previous financial year–not a small sum even for tech giants like Facebook and Twitter!

In its statement, the Commission said, “By setting a minimum set of duties of care on hosting service providers which includes some specific rules and obligations, as well as obligations for the Member States, the proposal intends to increase the effectiveness of current measures to detect, identify and remove terrorist content online without encroaching on fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression and information.”

Juncker emphasized the importance of ensuring that terrorists are prosecuted across Europe and beyond, because terrorists know no borders.

]]>Social Media Sites Face Hearings on Fake News and Hate Speechhttps://www.rknglobal.org/social-media-sites-face-hearings-on-fake-news-and-hate-speech/
Mon, 15 Oct 2018 08:27:31 +0000https://www.rknglobal.org/?p=760In prepared testimony, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that his company does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether the decision is related to how it enforces its rules or how it ranks content on its platform. Dorsey testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Dorsey maintained that Twitter believes in being […]

]]>In prepared testimony, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that his company does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether the decision is related to how it enforces its rules or how it ranks content on its platform.

Dorsey testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee

Dorsey maintained that Twitter believes in being impartial and strives to enforce its rules accordingly. Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter’s Dorsey testified before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in September regarding efforts to not only prevent but also identify efforts by foreign governments to spread fake news on the platforms.

The hearing was part of an ongoing government effort to address evidence of meddling done by Russia during the 2016 US Presidential elections. Dorsey made an appearance before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where he faced several allegations with respect to the social network suppressing conservative voices.

To this, Dorsey said that political bias does not affect how Twitter’s algorithm sorts political content.

Earlier, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, had testified before the Congress on his company’s internal practices just after the Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal.

Critics have been accusing Twitter of “shadowbanning Republicans”, or using algorithms to make their posts virtually invisible to many users. Google executives were also invited by congressional leaders to testify at the hearings, but they declined the invitation.

The U.S. President joins the critics

U.S. President Trump has also censured Twitter, Facebook and Google in a series of press conferences and tweets for allegedly displaying political bias against conservatives. At a recent press conference, the President said, “Google and Twitter and Facebook, they’re really treading on very, very troubled territory and they have to be careful. It’s not fair to large portions of the population.”

The Justice Department said that Attorney General Jeff Sessions will meet with state attorneys general to talk about concerns that tech companies may be hurting competition and constraining the free exchange of ideas on their social media platforms.

]]>Is Bitcoin a Good Means of Payment for Merchants?https://www.rknglobal.org/is-bitcoin-a-good-means-of-payment-for-merchants/
Tue, 09 Oct 2018 12:48:21 +0000https://www.rknglobal.org/?p=755 The price of Bitcoin has been subject to intense scrutiny over the past several years, as it skyrocketed, plummeted, and then struggled. Bitcoin may be popular but it has its disadvantages A survey published by the United Kingdom-based crypto-exchange CreditCoin in June revealed that over 75 percent of American consumers want the option to […]

The price of Bitcoin has been subject to intense scrutiny over the past several years, as it skyrocketed, plummeted, and then struggled.

Bitcoin may be popular but it has its disadvantages

A survey published by the United Kingdom-based crypto-exchange CreditCoin in June revealed that over 75 percent of American consumers want the option to use digital currency to pay for products while purchasing in stores. The survey also revealed several other interesting facts, such as:

75% of consumers would want to be able to use cryptocurrency in brick-and- mortar stores.

When asked what they would buy if given $10,000, around 39% said they would buy cryptocurrency and 33% said they would use it for down payment on a house, while 28% said they would buy a car.

80% of cryptocurrency owners said they own it for investment purposes.

The number of merchants allowing Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency payments has not gotten close to 75% yet, but it has enjoyed a (modest) increase. The number of Bitcoin-accepting stores across the world has increased by 3,716 in the past year, according to a report by Coinmap.

The digital currency may be a good store of value and quite popular, but it is not the cheapest way of buying goods. The transaction fees of BTC have gradually reduced since its SegWit upgrade, but the fees can increase through the occasional surge of overcrowding by as much as a few dollars, which can make a huge difference when making small purchases.